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Hemp house coming for Khayelitsha soup kitchen

Mickey Winifred Linda is the incredibly inspiring woman behind the Yiza Ekhaya Soup Kitchen and Sewing project, a community project based in Khayelitsha.

The Yiza Ekhaya Soup Kitchen feeds, cares for and offers a safe place for around 200 – 250 children in the local community. Recently, some of the children have started sleeping there as their home situations are unsafe. Up until now, it has operated from founder, Mickey Linda’s RDP house. Mickey and the children need a safer building.

Tony Budden from Hemporium, Wolf Oliver, sustainable architect, and GreenHome, a compostable food packaging company are teaming up to raise funds for South Africa’s 3rd Hemp building. They are running the campaign on local crowdfunding platform, Ripple.org.za.

Mickey started Yiza Ekhaya to help feed neighbourhood children from her own home with her own pension money. She’s opened her heart and her home providing a place of safety and care for children who wouldn’t normally have had that.

Food, love and humour on offer

This is one of the communities in Cape Town which has problems with alcohol and drug abuse. Yiza Ekhaya offers not only a daily wholesome meal but love, humour and the possibility of something else to the children. It gives them an example to follow.

Mickey’s example and her work has inspired other people from the community to volunteer and help. She stands as a positive role model for these children and she now needs a safe premises that can support her in her important role.

Why hemp as a building material?

Hemp is a natural, sustainable and carbon neutral building material. Hemp is fast growing and grown with low need for water and pesticides. Hemp can be used as the raw material for bricks, chipboard and insulation. It is non toxic, it breaths and regulates moisture. It also has excellent insulation (not too hot or cold as current RDP housing solutions tend to be).

It is currently illegal to grow Industrial Hemp in South Africa. We would like to build the Yiza Ekhaya Soup Kitchen from hemp to show it as an environmentally sustainable, cost effective and superior building material for RDP housing. Not only would Yiza Ekhaya benefit from having a building made from this natural material but it would also serve to showcase the potential for industrial Hemp to create opportunities, jobs and sustainable natural building materials for building homes in South Africa.

How did the campaign come about?

GreenHome is a South African compostable food packaging supplier that has had an ongoing relationship with Mickey and the Yiza Ekhaya Soup Kitchen. Last year, Mickey was asked to move the structure she currently runs her soup kitchen from.

Together, they worked on plans, had some discussions with builders and decided it was time to start fund raising to build Mickey a basic, safe structure to continue her work from. In fact she needed a good, supportive premises to help her to do her important work.

A good supportive premises should be made from natural materials so they joined forces with Tony Budden from Hemporium and Wolf, the architect behind South Africa’s first 2 Hemp houses. Hemporium offered hemp building materials at cost and Wolf offered his assistance to oversee the building process. GreenHome is running and funding the campaign.
And so the dream of building Mickey a Hemp House was born.

Campaign details

The Ripple crowdfunding campaign aims to raise R230 000 in total. The campaign is split into Milestones or Waves

Wave 1: R50,000 or £2800

With R50,000 we can build a foundation for the house and move Mickey’s shack onto it.

Wave 2: R120,000 or £6750

With R120,000 we can build a rudimentary permanent structure for Mickey’s Hemp House.

Wave 3: R230,000 or £13000

With R230,000 we can build a place of upliftment! A positive safe and healthy place to support Mickey in her daily work. A healthy wholesome home with insulation in the roof, tiles, taps, painted walls, a kitchen. All with your support.